The Quest for the Holy Representation
Categories: Adventures in Acting Behind the Scenes
In the beginning there was the word, and the word was made flesh. In the middle there was this person named an agent and/or a manager... and they told you what the word was and how it was being used or who was using them, and how you should use these words... and then in the end, the Hollywood Films Casting machine was made whole. So I arrived in Los Angeles with an awesome, almost too-good-to-be-true sounding but entirely legitimate program called The Pinnacle Actor's Group, headed by a wise old man by the name of Lawrence Folgo, who brought 45 years of experience and connections to the program. The program is great in that it offers the determined actor to arrive in Tinsel town with all the opportunities to hit the ground running. It lasted an entire month, and in that month we rehearsed previously found scenes, found new ones, and trained and perfected our craft for the potential agents, managers, and casting directors who came to see our three showcases.
When yet another new actor arrives in LA, there's no huge welcoming, no laundry list of people to see or meet for business, no lines of agents or managers to see what you got, none of that... unless... drum roll please... you have an agent or a manager in this town. Which of course I didn't have, and I didn't fly here and expect any of that. It's not like I drove from Florida to California thinking I would be arriving in the Promised Land. Far from it. If any feeling existed in me while behind the wheel, it was that of fear. A perfectly natural and healthy dose of fear is necessary when driving cross-country, but not when you know you're driving into the mouth of the lion. I had the feeling that I was going to be stoned to death for having a huge theater background and not enough film, I had the fear that when I arrived everyone was going to act like one of those characters on that HBO show Entourage, but they didn't. I did the miraculous Pinnacle Actor's program to the best of my ability and discipline and I landed some major interest among all the industry professionals present.
So there it was, the fear of it all absolved by a few performances before the curiously bored faces of a few of this industry's leading professionals, one showcase per week was all it took and I had something. But ultimately I know it didn't just take three showcases, I know it took me a lifetime to get here. A short lifetime of paying dues in the wrong state to do this business, Florida. In my hometown, you can have as many agents as you want; it's called a "right-to-work" state, meaning just that. In LA, one can only have one agent per category: Print, Commercial, Theatrical, and Literary. The dream of course being that you get representation "across the board" from ONE agency... but that's a lottery statistics thing I feel. So I got a manager now and he seems to like me and I also got a Commercial Agent and that's a good start I think. He's hooked me up with a few auditions for theatrical agencies but the holidays are holding everything in this town down till the New Year.
Okay. I hit the ground running... I even got off to a good speed out of the gate... But now what? I've run into a snowcapped mountain... that will melt quickly in January, I hope.
After all that I've been through to get here, I think that once the holidays are finally over I'll be ready to go through all of it all over again just to land that one agent who can really represent me through truly believing in me and knowing full well my present capabilities. Now I'm half-way there and living on a prayer (like Bon Jovi). I know why I'm here, and I got a little weight to start moving again... to continue my Quest to land that Holy Representation. But I'll have to wait till 2009, the year of Obama. The year of infinite possibilities.
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By: coffeeshorts
The articles on independent film making, film festivals and journalism.
Selections from www.joelnevilleanderson.net: Production journal and outlet for sporadic writing on culture and this so called seventh art, by Joel Neville Anderson.